By Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh

BEIJING (Reuters) -Apple’s smartphone shipments in China shrank 2.1% in the final quarter of 2023 from the same year-ago period, hurt by intensifying competition from local rivals led by Huawei, data from research firm IDC showed on Thursday.

The drop underscores the challenges facing the U.S. firm in its third biggest market, as some Chinese companies and government agencies limit employees’ use of Apple devices, a measure that mirrors U.S. government restrictions on Chinese apps on security grounds.

Huawei, whose smartphone business was decimated by U.S. sanctions, also made a comeback last year with new launches, intensifying competition in the world’s biggest smartphone market that grew just 1.2% in the final quarter of 2023.

Huawei’s shipments increased 36.2% in the last quarter of the year, the IDC figures showed. The company became the fourth largest smartphone vendor in China in the period with a 13.9% market share, up from 10.3% in the same year-ago quarter.

For the full year 2023, however, Apple overtook Vivo to become the top smartphone seller with a 17.3% market share, according to IDC. This marks the first time Apple became the top seller in China, but analysts predict its sales will come under pressure again this year.

IDC said Apple’s high-end market share in China has been impacted by rival products and limited product upgrades by Apple which reduced the overall attractiveness of iPhones.

It said Apple still attracted demand from many consumers through substantial discounts and promotions carried out through third-party distribution channels.

Earlier this month, Apple offered rare discounts on its iPhones, cutting retail prices by as much as 500 yuan ($70) amid growing competitive pressure.

Jefferies analysts predicted earlier this month that Apple’s shipment volumes would continue declining by double digits in 2024, while Huawei is seen bolstering its market share.

They estimate Huawei will ship around 64 million smartphones worldwide in 2024, a significant rise from fewer than 35 million units projected for 2023.

Overall, shipment volume in China’s smartphone market was 73.63 million units in the fourth quarter. For the full year, shipment volume was 271 million units, down 5%, IDC said.

Apple releases its quarterly results next week.

(Reporting by Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Miyoung Kim and Miral Fahmy)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy dock landing ship Gunston Hall left port on Wednesday to mark the first movement for the largest NATO exercise since the Cold War, officials said.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

Some 90,000 troops from the United States and fellow NATO allied nations are due to join the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills that will run through May.

More than 50 ships from aircraft carriers to destroyers will take part, as well as more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.

The drills will rehearse NATO’s execution of its regional plans, the first defence plans the alliance has drawn up in decades, detailing how it would respond to a Russian attack.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

NATO did not mention Russia by name in its announcement. But its top strategic document identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to NATO members’ security.

The exercise comes at an important moment after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started the deadliest war on European soil in more than 70 years.

KEY QUOTES

“#NATO today launched its biggest military exercise since 1988 with 90,000 personnel taking part in drills across the North Atlantic and Europe,” Matthias Eichenlaub, a NATO spokesperson, said on Twitter.

“The departure of the @USNavy’s Gunston Hall from Norfolk marked the (official) start of #SteadfastDefender24.”

RUSSIAN RESPONSE

The scale of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises mark an “irrevocable return” of the alliance to Cold War schemes, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the state RIA news agency in remarks published on Sunday.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart)

By Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is getting the opponent he thinks he was made to beat in 2024.

Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the first two Republican presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire make almost certain what Biden’s re-election campaign has predicted for months.

It’s a rematch they say they are confident Biden will win, even as public opinion polls show him tied with Trump and Americans are angry over high prices and question his age, his economic plans and his policies on the border and in the Middle East.

To beat Trump again, as he did in 2020, Biden’s team is focused on warning that Trump poses a serious threat to U.S. democracy, and that abortion and other personal freedoms are at stake. They are banking on that approach winning over independents and sparking enthusiasm among lukewarm Democrats.

Biden, 81, made the controversial decision to run for a second term in large part because he was convinced he would face Trump, 77, and because he thinks he is the Democrat who can beat him in the November election.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event last month. “We cannot let him win.”

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters on Wednesday that “the results out of New Hampshire confirm that Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination and the election-denying anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its take over of the Republican Party.”

Exit polls show that most Republican voters don’t care about Trump’s string of criminal indictments and many believe untrue claims that Biden did not win the 2020 election fairly.

That has persuaded many in Biden’s camp that there is little reason to try to reach Trump supporters in a bruising campaign.

At this point, most Americans either love Trump or hate him, Biden campaign aides said – and the same is true of Biden. The 2024 election will be focused on who can find their voters and turn them out.

Trump has accused Biden and Democrats of “fearmongering” and this month called Biden’s record “an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Biden versus Trump would be the seventh U.S. presidential rematch in history, but the first since Republican President Dwight Eisenhower faced Democrat Adlai Stevenson for the second time in a row in the 1956 election.

THE ECONOMY VS. DEMOCRACY

Facing complaints from some Democrats that the campaign was unfocused, Biden’s team has added election veterans.

Earlier this month, White House infrastructure coordinator and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu became national co-chair of the campaign and a Democratic presidential campaign veteran, Dan Kanninen, came on to run efforts in the battleground states that are hotly contested because they can swing either to Republicans or Democrats.

On Tuesday, the campaign pulled in White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and senior adviser Mike Donilon, both of them veterans who are regarded as having successfully piloted Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in coming weeks will visit key states most likely to decide the election. The campaign now has staff in each of the seven closely contested states they regard as battlegrounds, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Biden will focus mostly on economic issues and also give more fiery speeches about the threat he believes Trump poses to democracy.

Harris started a nationwide tour in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Monday focused on Republicans’ anti-abortion measures. The campaign is focused on Americans impacted by the conservative Supreme Court’s reversal of the landmark Roe V. Wade ruling that had guaranteed women’s right to abortion services.

Harris, the country’s first Black vice president, is also tasked with revving up support from young and Black voters, where support for Biden has waned.

TRUMP FEARS RAISE CASH

Biden’s fundraising off Trump’s Iowa and New Hampshire results started immediately.

“This election was always, going to be you and me vs. extreme MAGA Republicans,” a Biden post on social media proclaimed the night of the Iowa results. “It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow. So if you’re with us, chip in now.”

Biden allies predict a new rush of funds will dwarf the $97 million that the campaign and the Democratic Party raised in the last three months of 2023.

Trump raised $45 million in the third quarter, the latest figures available, not including Republican Party fundraising.

“The Trump inevitability is a fundraising bonanza for Biden and I know a lot of Republicans who agree with that,” said John Morgan, a Florida attorney and top fundraiser, who predicts the campaign could see $500 million in new cash.

“People fear they will lose their country, their democracy, their rights and there is a very high-level of motivation around that,” Morgan said.

Read Reuters’ full U.S. election coverage here:

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose and Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Lisa Shumaker)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule on Friday whether or not they will grant emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide.

The United Nations’ top court issued a statement on Wednesday saying the 17-judge panel will hand down its ruling in court on Jan. 26 at 1200 GMT.

Earlier this month, in two days of hearings, South Africa asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel dismissed the genocide allegations as “grossly distorted” and said it had a right to defend itself and was targeting Hamas militants, not Palestinian civilians.

In the ruling on Friday, the ICJ will not deal with the main question if Israel is committing genocide.

The court will just look at possible emergency measures, meant as a kind of restraining order to prevent a dispute from getting worse while the court looks at the full case, which usually takes years.

If the ICJ does decide on issuing emergency measures it is not bound to order exactly what South Africa asked for.

Rulings by the court are legally binding and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Stephanie van den Berg, editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Just weeks after the 2024 Super Bowl, it’ll be time to put money on the line for March Madness. 

For 2023, Statista estimates about $15.5 billion was bet on March Madness games. Heading into March 2024, we don’t have estimates just yet, but we expect to see nearly $20 billion in Madness bets for the year. One of the stocks that could benefit from the games is DraftKings (DKNG), which has already been explosive this year.

For some history, DKNG ran from about $59 to $76 ahead of the 2021 games. In 2022, DKNG ran slightly higher before resuming its downtrend. Last year, it ran from about $18.50 to about $30 a share later in the year.

Analysts at Stifel also like DKNG, upgrading it to a buy rating with a price target of $45. The firm added, “The stock’s recent correction affords an attractive entry point, with the company’s market share headwinds easing,” as quoted by TheFly.com.

Another way to trade March Madness is with an ETF.

Look at the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ), for example. With an expense ratio of 0.75%, the $16 ETF offers diversification with Entain PLC, Flutter Entertainment, Penn Entertainment, DraftKings, Churchill Downs, MGM Resorts, and many more.  What’s nice about an ETF is that it offers greater exposure at less cost.

Or, you can invest in one of the many sponsors of March Madness, including Coca-Cola (KO).

With strong demand, dependable dividends, and incredible earnings growth, Coca-Cola may be one of the best stocks to consider, long-term.  Buffett, who drinks about five cans of Coke a day, agrees, once calling KO a “forever” stock.  Coca-Cola is also a dividend king, raising its dividend for the last 60+ years. It currently has a yield of 3.09%.

By Nia Williams

(Reuters) – Six people were killed after a small plane carrying Rio Tinto workers crashed near Fort Smith in Canada’s remote Northwest Territories (NWT), the NWT Coroner Service said on Wednesday.

Four passengers and two North Western Air Lease crew members died in the crash, Chief Coroner Garth Eggenberger said in a statement, adding the plane had been travelling from Fort Smith en route to the Diavik Diamond Mine.

There was one survivor who was treated at the Fort Smith Health Centre before being taken to hospital in the provincial capital Yellowknife.

Rio Tinto Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm said in a statement on Tuesday night that the company was devastated by the crash.

(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia, Editing by Franklin Paul and Chizu Nomiyama)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy dock landing ship Gunston Hall left port on Wednesday to mark the first movement for the largest NATO exercise since the Cold War, officials said.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

Some 90,000 troops from the United States and fellow NATO allied nations are due to join the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills that will run through May.

More than 50 ships from aircraft carriers to destroyers will take part, as well as more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.

The drills will rehearse NATO’s execution of its regional plans, the first defence plans the alliance has drawn up in decades, detailing how it would respond to a Russian attack.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

NATO did not mention Russia by name in its announcement. But its top strategic document identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to NATO members’ security.

The exercise comes at an important moment after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started the deadliest war on European soil in more than 70 years.

KEY QUOTES

“#NATO today launched its biggest military exercise since 1988 with 90,000 personnel taking part in drills across the North Atlantic and Europe,” Matthias Eichenlaub, a NATO spokesperson, said on Twitter.

“The departure of the @USNavy’s Gunston Hall from Norfolk marked the (official) start of #SteadfastDefender24.”

RUSSIAN RESPONSE

The scale of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises mark an “irrevocable return” of the alliance to Cold War schemes, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the state RIA news agency in remarks published on Sunday.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart)

(Reuters) -The nose wheel of a Boeing 757 passenger jet operated by Delta Air Lines popped off and rolled away as the plane was lining up for takeoff over the weekend from Atlanta’s international airport, according to the airline and regulators.

A Federal Aviation Administration notice filed on Monday said the aircraft was lining up and waiting for takeoff at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when the “nose wheel came off and rolled down the hill.”

Nobody was hurt in Saturday’s incident, which is under investigation. The Boeing 757 stopped production in 2004, making it an older model, unlike the recent in-flight blowout of a fuselage panel in an eight-week-old Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet.

“Tower, it sounds like we have a problem,” the Delta pilot said, after being warned by the crew of another aircraft that one of two wheels on the front nose-gear had rolled away, according to a recording on liveatc.net.

“Tower there’s a 75(7) on the runway just lost a nose tire,” the pilot of the unidentified second aircraft told controllers.

The plane, which was headed to Bogota, Colombia, was towed away. Passengers were transferred to a replacement aircraft and the affected jet was put back in service the next day.

Boeing has faced increased regulatory scrutiny and intense media attention following the Jan. 5 blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight. Nobody was seriously injured, but the FAA grounded 171 MAX 9s after the incident.

A Boeing spokesperson referred questions to Delta and noted that 757 production ended in 2004.

Ongoing airworthiness of an individual aircraft in service is the responsibility of the operator, though regulators or jetmakers periodically issue requests for extra inspections as they have with the MAX 9’s predecessor, the 737-900ER.

Delta has a large and diverse fleet of aircraft, including some of the oldest in service in the United States.

Delta said the aircraft that lost the wheel was acquired in 1992, making it around 32 years old. It said in September the average age of its 757-200 planes was 26.1 years and that of its 757-300 planes was 20.6 years.

For years it relied on getting the maximum potential out of existing fleets but in recent years has joined other carriers in placing orders to take advantage of fuel and emission savings.

The airline, which also owns one of the industry’s largest repair businesses, has consistently argued there is no safety risk from properly maintained older planes. But a string of unrelated incidents has kept aviation safety in the spotlight.

Civil airplanes typically have an economic life of 20 to 25 years but are built to be flown longer up to certain limits.

Safety experts say there is no simple correlation between age and safety, though older planes need to be monitored for structural stresses depending on how heavily they have flown.

According to a Boeing brochure, most landing gear have to be removed and overhauled about every 10 years depending on the type of plane. Tires are changed every 150 to 400 landings, according to aviation publication Simple Flying.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Tim Hepher in Paris and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; editing by Miral Fahmy, Nick Zieminski and Jonathan Oatis)

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – China will boost efforts to attract foreign firms and will not change its stance to protect the legal rights of foreign companies, the nation’s top financial regulator said.

“The Chinese mainland will not change its policy to enhance efforts to attract and utilise foreign capital into its financial industry,” Li Yunze, head of China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), said at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

“The direction of providing a better business environment for foreign investment will not change,” Li said.

China is studying lowering the threshold for Hong Kong and Macau financial institutions to take stakes in mainland insurance companies, Li added.

China’s economy grew 5.2% in 2023, slightly above the official target, but the recovery was far shakier than many analysts expected, weighed down by mounting local government debt and a deepening property crisis.

Stock markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai have tumbled as global investors in China head for the exit in the world’s second-biggest economy.

China’s economic development is facing some difficulties and challenges but economic growth remains strong and there is ample room for macro policies, Li said.

Overall operations in China’s financial industry are stable and the risks are controllable, he said.

(Reporting by Selena Li, Kane Wu, Ziyi Tang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

By Jarrett Renshaw

(Reuters) -Two of U.S. President Joe Biden’s top advisers, Mike Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon, will leave the White House for his reelection campaign early next month, as Democrats ramp up their battle plans and former President Donald Trump’s Republican nomination seems imminent.

Donilon, senior adviser at the White House, is expected to play a central role in the campaign’s messaging and paid media strategy, while O’Malley Dillon, deputy chief of staff, will oversee the organizing and execution of the campaign’s path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win, according to a source familiar with the plans, who provided no further explanation.

“Mike and Jen were essential members of the senior team that helped President Biden and Vice President Harris earn the most votes in American history in 2020, and we’re thrilled to have their leadership and strategic prowess focused full-time on sending them back to the White House for four more years,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

Several Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, have questioned Biden’s reelection strategy and encouraged him to shift people and decision-making from the White House to his headquarters in Wilmington.

“I’m thankful to Mike and Jen both for their service in the White House these last three years, and I am grateful that in rejoining the campaign, they are stepping up one more time to ensure we finish the job for the American people,” Biden said in a statement.

Trump won New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary election on Tuesday, Edison Research projected, moving closer to a likely Nov. 5 rematch with Biden even as his only remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, vowed to soldier on.

Edison projected Biden would win the New Hampshire Democratic primary based on write-in votes, after he declined to appear on the ballot due to a dispute with the state about the election’s timing.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – in a bit of counterprogramming, traveled Tuesday to Virginia for a campaign event on abortion, an issue that has proven to drive voters to the polls to oppose conservative measures.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons, Daniel Wallis and Howard Goller)